One of Japan’s most acclaimed contemporary photography artists, Rinko Kawauchi, presents a selection of over 40 photographs and one video from the last fifteen years. Reminiscent of Japanese photography of the 1960s Kawauchi’s work is the search for the sublime amid the banal; poetically her sense of wonder transforms the quotidian into something extraordinary. With the same vigour and depth she applies to the making of her books, the artist has gone about to create an exhibition that allows the viewer to visually drift like riding on the current of a well-orchestrated piece of music.

With numerous solo exhibitions to date, Kawauchi’s talent has previously been on view in important international institutions, such as in the Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain in Paris, the California Museum of Photography in Riverside, Hasselblad Centre in Gothenburg, or the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo. Furthermore, she was rewarded with a nomination for the 2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for her book Illuminance. This exhibition-accompanying publication, as well as her latest book Ametsuchi, will be available at the gallery.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, the 44 photographs and the one video installation presented with Illuminance correlate through their presence of light, whether in its magnificently glittering or delicately sublime cast. At once conceptual and ambiguous Kawauchi’s approach is personal while at the same time striking a universal cord.

Concrete – Photography and Architecture seeks to approach the singular and complex relationship between architecture and photography in light-hearted, narrative and dialectical ways. The exhibition explores issues of history and ideology, as well as the specifics of form and material, in the photographic image. The visual appeal of destroyed or dilapidated buildings is also addressed, as are their powerful demonstrations of power and exclusivity, fragility and beauty. To what extent does photography influence not only the way architecture is perceived, but also the way it is designed?


Michael Wesely: Kanadische Botschaft, Leipziger Platz, Berlin (5.2.2003 – 28.4.2005)
C-Print, 125 x 175 cm
Galerie Fahnemann, Berlin
© Michael Wesely/Courtesy Galerie Fahnemann

With works from, among others, Iwan Baan, Édouard-Denis Baldus, Lewis Baltz, Domenico Bresolin, Balthasar Burkhard, Gregory Crewdson, Willie Doherty, Sigfried Giedion, David Goldblatt, F.C. Gundlach, Lucien Hervé, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Germaine Krull, Stanley Kubrick, Sol LeWitt, El Lissitzky, Charles Marville, Gordon Matta-Clark, Randa Mirza, Lucia Moholy, Nils Nova, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Thomas Ruff, Julius Shulman, Ezra Stoller, Paul Strand, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, William Henry Fox Talbot, Jakob Tuggener, Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown, Paul Virilio, Michael Wesely, Anita Witek, Ulrich Wüst and Tobias Zielony.